Harley Davidson Clear coat and other questions

[sickboy]

Hi all,
I am a newbie to the forum and am relatively new to custom painting (less than 2 years). I am currently adding artwork to the plastic batwing fairing of my 2017 HD Street Glide Special. I have some questions regarding clear coating but will outline what I have done to the fairing so far:
-removed the fairing, degreased and dewaxed
-washed the fairing several times
-wetsanded the clearcoat with 800 grit sand paper, just enough to take the shine off
-spent several months airbrushing the artwork, using Createx Wicked and Autoair colors.

So I am getting close to the end of the project and am trying to prepare to clear coat. I use a ANI 150 rh minigun with a 1.2mm tip, usually at 40psi at between 25-30 degrees celsius in my home-made booth. Here are my questions:

1. If I understand correctly, HD paints and clearcoat is made by PPG. Alos, if I understand correctly, I should use the same brand of clear coat that was on previously, as I will be spraying onto existing clear and I want to avoid clear incompatabilities such as blistering or lifting. Does anyone know which PPG clearcoat is used, and whether it is safe to spray in my home-booth. I do not have an oven, so can PPG clear be sprayed and just allowed to air dryÉ
2. If PPG clear is not a god option, is there another brand of clear coat that can be safely sprayed onto the existing clear, that does not require bakingÉ

I just thought of one other question, but it is about surface preparation: how long do you have to wait after wetsanding before spraying a coatingÉ

Thank you very much for the advice,
sickboy

 

[TAZ]

Once the clearcoat is hardened and is resanded you can apply any brand clearcoat you would like. It does not have to be the Harley paint. You can use any clear you want

I wasn't for sure what you meant by...
"how long do you have to wait after wetsanding before spraying a coating"

If you wetsand, that would normally mean the coating should be cured enough thus meaning you can paint on top of that coating at anytime. ( guess that may answer your question

 

[sickboy]

Hi Taz, thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it.
What I meant by the wetsanding question was, if you wetsand a part and wipe it off or blow it off with compressed air to dry it off, how long would you usually wait before spraying the next coat to ensure the part is dry and won't contaminate the coating with water? Up until now I usually wait 24 hours to make sure the part is completely dry. I imagine in a production setting you couldn't wait that long.
Thanks again!

 

[TAZ]

Sounds like you may be wetsanding between coats. I normally don't do this or unless I see a piece of dirt or something in the basecoat. I'll spot wetsand and and blend in more basecoat right after blow drying that spot dry.
So if you are wetsanding between coats, you should be fine to reapply the next coat once you blow off that area and it's fully dry from the water.

 

[John Patton]

Sounds like you may be wetsanding between coats. I normally don't do this or unless I see a piece of dirt or something in the basecoat. I'll spot wetsand and and blend in more basecoat right after blow drying that spot dry.
So if you are wetsanding between coats, you should be fine to reapply the next coat once you blow off that area and it's fully dry from the water.

You seem to have quite a bit of experience with all this. I find you interact and help people very well. Thank you for helping everyone